Image & Explanation (Explanation & above image from RachelsEnglish.com)
“Here’s a profile comparison of the two sounds. The sound on the left is the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel, and the sound on the right the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’. Right away you can notice there’s a little bit more tension in the corner of the mouth for the ‘ee’ vowel. That’s because the corners of the lips pull back a little bit. The mouth position is more relaxed, more neutral for the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel…The tongue positions are clearly very similar. In the ‘ee’ vowel, however, the tongue does lift even more towards the roof of the mouth. It’s just a little bit more relaxed in the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. One thing that can help students to relax their tongue a little bit more is to think of keeping the front part very wide. Sometimes that helps them to get a better ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. Also, it is hard to tell here, but the jaw does drop a little bit more for the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel.”
Vowels
"i" sound: / I / vs. / iy /
RachelsEnglish.com, © 2017
Image & Explanation
(Explanation & above image from RachelsEnglish.com)
“Here’s a profile comparison of the two sounds. The sound on the left is the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel, and the sound on the right the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’. Right away you can notice there’s a little bit more tension in the corner of the mouth for the ‘ee’ vowel. That’s because the corners of the lips pull back a little bit. The mouth position is more relaxed, more neutral for the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel…The tongue positions are clearly very similar. In the ‘ee’ vowel, however, the tongue does lift even more towards the roof of the mouth. It’s just a little bit more relaxed in the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. One thing that can help students to relax their tongue a little bit more is to think of keeping the front part very wide. Sometimes that helps them to get a better ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. Also, it is hard to tell here, but the jaw does drop a little bit more for the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel.”
Examples
Exercises